A Parenting Lesson for Sports Fans - Tiger, Mark and Vic

Fathers for decades, possibly centuries, have taken their sons and daughters to games, read to them from the sports page and watched with them their heros on TV. These children learn at a very tender age that these athletes are not mere mortals but gods worthy of celebration and worship. Fathers tell stories of the greats from their childhood with both reverence and nostalgia; lifting the old-timers to nearly mythological greatness and illustrate how the new guys learned from them.

Which is most definitely true. The sports heros of today have taken many pages from the play books of yesteryear, some pages filled with great talent and others with philandery, excess and debauchery. The benefit that guys like Mantle, Chamberlin and Ruth had was that the media didn't have the access to their lives like today and their management maintained a better grip on them. It didn't come out until the latter days of the 20th century that the Babe was a ranging drunk, a fan of cocaine and physically abusive to his wives; a true degenerate's degenerate. Mickey Mantel was a drunk and a womanizer of the highest order. He would probably have been called a sex addict if he were alive today, along with Wilt Chamberlin.  Not to mention that nearly 4 in 10 prominent sports figures in the last 20 years have been arrested or at least stopped for drunk driving.

But does anybody really remember these facts when they reminisce about these sports legends? No, I don't think so. Does grandpa think back to what an inspiration the Babe was? Sure but does he'll tell you about the time he bet his second wife so bad that she was hospitalized for a week? Doubtful.

Now though, that's all gone. The Age of Heros has ended and all we are left with is plain old, fucked up people that are exposed to excesses and temptations beyond that which the rest of us ever see. So fathers don't build these guys up to your kids anymore because when they screw up, and the eventually all do, your kid might just be young enough to think it was cool as opposed to stupid and therefore draw the conclusion that drug abuse and adultery are behaviors to be celebrated. Or when they are older and their favorite bat jockey gets busted in a kiddy porn ring, there will be days of disillusionment followed by a deep sense of loss; the loss of childhood heros and of something to aspire to. Instead teach them to enjoy the game, have fun and try hard and remember that most of those guys on the TV screen are just overpaid idiots that got lucky.

I really don't get all the deification anyway. Are there no other people to look up to anymore? The best our culture has to offer are now guys that throw or hit something for a living? How about leaders in field that actual improve our lives? Like the people discovering cures for diseases, pioneering space travel and developing things like Twitter and eBay? Do you know their names? No, of course not, they're not sports figures. They haven't been pulled over for drunk driving and arrested for shooting someone in a bar...yet.

With all due respect,
The Chief